the world hanging upside down
by piratesails
Summary: Lucy tries to adjust to her new surroundings, and maybe to herself. Post 2x01.


**a/n:** **full disclosure: this is a lyatt fic, but before that, it is definitely a lucy preston fic. I don't know where this came from, I don't know what I'm doing, I just felt v compelled to write. and lucy is such a complex character to explore especially with everything happening. so. hello new fandom, be kind, please, I'm still trying to get their voices down.**

 **leave me your thoughts and I will love you forever.**

 **(title from 'the cave' by mumford & sons.)**

* * *

In 1758, the Scots first recorded the word "bunker," or "bunk." Translated to bench, seat, sleeping berth. Lucy can't stop thinking about it, it runs like a loop over and over in her mind when she should be asleep. The walls around her are hard, unforgiving, and if she focuses on the stenciled writing near the corner, the black, bold, letters begin to convince her that the ceiling is closing in. Maybe it's the lighting. Maybe it's the way she can hear every single footstep reverberate around her.

"It's a hellhole," Wyatt had told her on the way back from France. He'd made a show of curving his mouth in the most distasteful expression, and she couldn't help but grin. "Agent Christopher has guards stationed at the gate upstairs."

"And whose fault is that?" Rufus had interjected. When he'd turned in his seat to share a pointed glance with Wyatt, Lucy had had the distinct feeling of isolation, of knowing she'd missed out on weeks of conversations between them. She'd held on to the straps of the belt a little tighter after that.

She doesn't expect much from the place, given its name; Lucy understands the connotations behind it. She's lived in an approximate of two houses her whole life, her college dorm and temporary time travel accommodations notwithstanding, but this is—

She turns to her side for what might be the eleventh time. Frankly, she's stopped counting, and has definitely stopped trying to wriggle herself into the hard mattress in an attempt to get it to mould under her.

It's weird, is what it is.

And maybe the Scots did things differently because no way in hell can she imagine getting any kind of good sleep in here. The rest of the team is still outside, no doubt crowding around the phone and trying to track the Mothership to get a hold of Nicholas Keynes. And there's that guilt again, assaulting her almost as hard as the recoil from the gun had, the violent sound ringing in her ears.

She burrows her nose deeper into the sweatshirt she has on and watches the empty bed next to her own. She dozes off for a few minutes every few hours until Jiya comes in to wake her up for breakfast.

Lucy has too many questions, has been gone too long to understand the dynamics of the roommates she's found herself in this position with. She drags herself out of bed, and tells herself that at least this isn't the first impossible situation she's been in.

-/-

"And we keep a chair in front of the door, because, you know, there's no lock." Rufus gives her a little shrug, part frustration, part acceptance. Lucy has her own reservations about this metal cabin they're supposed to call home, but up until a day ago, she didn't even think home was an option for her. "Wyatt forgets sometimes. But the guy's been kind of a mess for the last few weeks."

Rufus gives her a long, suffering, look that's supposed to mean something, but she decides not to dwell on that. Decides that the feeling of Wyatt's scruff underneath her fingertips will go away if she doesn't think about it. Except, pointedly not thinking about it categorically lands under "thinking about it" and Lucy is a little too strung out to open up that Pandora's Box.

"Right," she says. "Anything else?"

"We alternate cooking days. Jiya made a chart."

"Should I take today?"

Rufus shakes his head. "I'm on duty. Besides, you need all the rest you can get. We don't know what's going to come at us next."

"Funny, you'd think having a time machine would prepare you for the unexpected."

Rufus scoffs. He puts his arm around her and squeezes. "It's good to have you back."

-/-

She's never had house rules. Not like this, anyway. Do your chores and clean up after yourself — those are the normal, middle class, average American family ways. Waking up to grinding metal and continuous beeping, she thinks maybe she should put down a request for "No Working On The Lifeboat Before 12 PM" to be an official rule.

"You get used to it," Jiya says over coffee, dark circles formed around her eyes. Agent Christopher had to send a soldier to get more cutlery and pairs of clothes for Lucy, but at least there's a coffee machine and clean mugs for each of them right now. Jiya's smile is a fond thing, and Lucy feels a warmth in her chest.

She looks from Jiya to Rufus, to Connor Mason sitting in the corner flipping through files. She hears the bathroom door bang shut as Wyatt comes out and down the hall, tugging the end of his t-shirt sleeve.

It is is seven in the morning and Lucy is having coffee with her friends. Who are supposed to be dead. Are, well, technically dead to the rest of the world. She hasn't asked, but she knows Rufus isn't taking it easily, knows he has family that are probably taking it worse. She wonders about Jiya's mother, whose name she's never even bothered finding out. And Wyatt. Maybe his empty apartment longs for him.

And her. Her family's feelings are something she can't pin down — how can she be sure when she doesn't even know anything about them?

Amy would miss her.

She misses Amy.

"Luce?"

Wyatt's standing over her with the coffee pot in his hand, brows knitted together.

"Hm?"

"More coffee?" He raises the pot. Lucy realises her mug is empty and silently moves it closer to him in answer. He sits down next to her, and leans in. "You good?"

"As much as I can be," she replies. It does nothing to wipe the worried expression off his face, though, so she goes for a weak smile and gulps down her coffee.

"I'm here if you want to, I don't know," he starts, and for a brief, ridiculous, second, she thinks he's going to ask her to kiss him. It hits her out of nowhere, and she's too close to him, can still feel his breath on her lips from when he was sitting on her bed. Can still hear his heart thudding in that quiet room, almost bouncing off the metal in an echo. "Talk," Wyatt finishes.

Lucy doesn't know what to do with her hands when they have a mind of their own and want, too badly, to be pushing Wyatt's wet hair back and out of his eyes. She grips her mug tighter, nods.

Wyatt lowers his voice, says, "I meant what I said before, you haven't lost me. And you won't."

She nods again, lets the hot liquid burn down her throat and settle at the base of her stomach so she can have an excuse for the heavy weight she feels there.

-/-

Lucy is keenly aware of how she jumps from metal box to metal box. She knows the Lifeboat inside out at this point, could tell you ridges and bolts and buttons, could describe the jump of her gut when it starts up, could time the seconds, down to a T, it takes Wyatt to lean forward and secure her belt.

There's a chance that not sleeping has made her hyper aware of her surroundings; college Lucy would lose her freaking mind if she saw her now, knowing their insomniac states are the same. She'd also lose her freaking mind because of the time travel, of course. Sometimes, she doesn't quite believe it herself. Sometimes her life before all of this feels like hazy smoke clouds she's trying to catch in handfuls, forced to watch them crawl out through her fingers. Her mother in bed, her sister and that damn podcast that she should have listened to more than just once.

There's a lot of things she needs to get used to, now.

Like, Wyatt and Rufus bickering like children over the smallest things, Jiya's papers strewn in multiple places, Connor's absolute lack of cooking ability that really should get him kicked off the chart completely, bathroom schedules, her too stiff pillow.

The fact that she never quite knows when the sun has set.

The fact that she doesn't know which part of her life isn't orchestrated by some centuries surviving group of murderers and dictators.

It's not the easiest adjustment she's ever had to make.

-/-

The bunker is pretty big, she'll give it that. There are corners hidden by other corners and even though there isn't a specific room dedicated to wardrobes throughout the ages, they could very well fit one in if they tried to. She misses the clothes, though. There's something about being wrapped up in history like that that she cherishes.

It's big enough that after sitting in Flynn's cell with him, it feels a little more than daunting. And after South Carolina and the brightly painted steels of NASCAR, the military green around her feels jarring at best. She walks around the inner perimeter of it, not sure what she's hoping to gain, until she sees Wyatt.

He's sitting on a bench, cleaning out his gun. His practiced motions are easy, and Lucy's still stuck like quicksand in the thought of one man's blood — she doesn't know how Wyatt does it.

"How's your arm?" Lucy asks in greeting. He almost looks startled at her presence, and then eases immediately.

"It was just a fall." He slides to one side, making room for her, and puts his gun down.

"You jumped out of a speeding car," she deadpans. No, she definitely does _not_ know how he does it.

Wyatt gives her a smug grin and shrugs. "The real bummer was finding out my favourite racer was a sleeper cell. If time travel has taught me anything, it's your heroes aren't who you think they are."

"Oh yeah? What about Ian Fleming?"

"Okay, no, that guy was cool. I was in his _book_ ," he gushes, " _and_ his movie." He shakes his head with a smile. "Guess it's not all too bad."

Lucy stares at her hands, wringing them together. She thinks about Marie Curie and her daughter, thinks about Judith Campbell, Katherine Johnson, Lincoln, Houdini. Her mother. Amy. It always comes back, circling around and around and leaving her with nothing to show for it.

They'd almost died today, again. They'd almost gotten trapped on the grounds of that racetrack, guns to their heads. It could have gone either way, and the more she thinks about all of it, the more it starts to unravel her.

"We've been to so many times, and it really makes you think about how big all of this is. History is huge and it keeps growing, every single day. I've been immersed in it my whole life, right in the center of this big thing, and I have never felt small. And then I got off the Lifeboat and into this bunker and I—," she takes in a sharp breath and holds it there for a few seconds. "It just feels like everything I have ever known is wrong. Everything I've spent my life making sure of, letting myself believe. I was fighting for Amy, and now I just don't know if that's even gonna work."

She can feel her words sticking to the back of her throat, refusing to come out. So she stops, squeezes her eyes shut.

"Hey," Wyatt says softly, threading his hand through hers and resting them in her lap. "They said you were dead, you know? Almost two months went by and everyone kept telling me that you were gone, but I didn't believe it. I _couldn't_ believe it. You're going to doubt yourself a hundred times, but I know you're going to get Amy back."

There's a spattering of purple bruises running up from his knuckles to his elbow from where he hit the ground when he jumped. Lucy gives in to the compulsion and runs her hand over them, barely touching the skin, landing to rest it on his forearm.

"My mother knew she was alive this whole time. And Rittenhouse, it's _in_ me, they called me royalty."

"Lucy, you are nothing like those assholes."

She shakes her head because maybe he's right, but maybe he isn't. She killed that innocent soldier, would go back and change everything to make sure Amy was still alive, would have used that grenade in a heartbeat.

This bunker might be foreign, but her body feels more so.

"I'm questioning everything." Wyatt squeezes her hand and she sighs. "The only thing that makes sense to me is all this. The Lifeboat, Rufus, Jiya, you." She looks at him and it's important to her that he knows that they're the reasons she hasn't completely lost it. "It's crazy, right? Who thought changing history would be the one thing I'd put my faith in?"

"Crazy doesn't even begin to cover it," he chuckles and she smiles. "You'll figure out what you're meant to do, Lucy, you always do."

"Yeah," she says, half believing him. She lets her head fall onto his shoulder. "I missed you."

His sigh stutters out like he's been holding it for the last six weeks. "I missed you, too."

They have a while before dinner, if any other disaster doesn't interrupt the routine, so they sit there, secluded, everyone else's fainted voices wafting down the halls from the main room.

Wyatt's thumb runs calm circles on the back of her hand, and she feels his lips press on to the top of her head. His touch translates to comfort, safety, belonging. For a few, blissful, minutes, Lucy doesn't think about anything at all. Instead, she feels grounded, like someone picked her out of where she was drifting in space and dusted her off. And maybe she just needed a little reminding; she'll figure it all out, in time.


End file.
